Untitled, Berlin 1983 - Limited Edition of 30 Photograph

The picture was intended as a poster motif for a Super 8 film that fell victim to censorship. The cross on the ceiling hovers like a sword of Damocles over the abandoned bed. Exhibition history:
 
1984 Gethsemane Church, Berlin
 1984 Jugendclub Schaufenster, Berlin 1987 »Out of Eastern Europe: Private Photography« Massachusetts Institute of Technologie, Cambridge/Mass. und Rosa Esman Gallery, New York »Aktuelle Fotografie in der DDR« National image office Hamburg 
 1995 »Young Photographers of the Eighties«, Galerie Mitte, Dresden
 2003 Art Media Center Berlin Adlershof
 2003 Town Gallery Iserlohn
 2004 Kunsthalle Erfurt

 2020 Gallery Bernd Lausberg, Düsseldorf Collectors Edition 30 + 1 Artist Proof Fine Art Print, (40 x 30" with border 2 inch, 101,6 x 76,2 cm with border 5 cm) signed and numered by the artist on Paper #deutschefotografischeakademie Matthias Leupold: "The past has only just begun - scenic photographs, East Berlin" (1983 - 1989) ? Our guest curator #Christoph Tannert has chosen this photo as one of his ten favourites from the DFA member portfolios. He associates the image selection with "an awareness of finitude". (2021) © Matthias Leupold: „Die Vergangenheit hat erst begonnen – Szenische Fotografien, Ostberlin“ (1983 - 1989) ? Unser Gastkurator #Christoph Tannert hat dieses Foto als eines seiner zehn Favoriten aus den DFA-Mitglieder-Portfolios ausgewählt. Mit der Bildauswahl verbindet er „ein Bewusstsein von Endlichkeit“. (2021) John P. Jacob, Curator for Photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington: Matthias Leupold's photographs are in variably elegant, their simplicity is always deceptive. Leupold merges mythology with historical narrative, and fiction with reality. As much as they speak of the artist personal history and as admirably as they describe the culturewithin hin lives and works, Matthias Leupold's photographs illustrate the complexity of photography itself. Occasionally serious, often mocking but never scolding... (Introduction, M.L. Living Pictures, catalogue Künstlerdorf Schöppingen 1995/1996) Matthias Leupold himself refers to his pictures as scenic photographs. Admittedly, the term is unusual, but it describes the way in which Leupold works more precisely than the established notions of staged or staging photography. The word scenic refers to a particular place; skene was the arena or the stage in antique Greek theatre, while a scene in the modern sense is a short, self-contained part of a theatre play or film. Transferred to photography, therefore, it means a place where something is presented to us so that we may look at it. And it also means the arena for an event, for an action as part of a narrative or a story. With very few exceptions, Leupold produces this event - embedded into a story or evoking one - especially for the purpose of photographing and holding on to it – in his picture. Leupold took up a special, almost incommensurable position from the very beginning: his work is not characterised by rational calculation or explicit media reflection, and it demonstrates very few special photographic techniques. Instead its qualities are playfulness, poetry, dreaminess, a gentle melancholy, pictorial narratives, narrative series and irony. The developments and gains in Leupold’s work during the four short years in East Berlin may be summed up as three fields of opposing tension: between the static and the dynamic, between contemplation and narration, and between the joke and the symbol. In the pictures, however, these dimensions do not divide up, but – to some extent or even fully – they fall into one. T.O. Immisch, Leader of Photographic Collection Art Museum Halle, Saale: Matthias Leupold’s Fictive Images The fundamentals of Leupold's artistic photographics works
In his photographic series, Leupold investigates the manifestation and the social ties of various picture groups. "Appearance and being, realism and illusion become conceptually mixed up for the viewer. What should he believe? What is considered acceptable?" This quote by the german publicist Enno Kaufhold displays the diversity of Leupolds artistic creations, which are thematically tied to the german politcal system of the twentieth century. In particular, the differences between the social and art worlds of the GDR and the FRG. Leupold's photographic art does not require description; it is revealed by looking closely at each individual - a school of seeing that offers insights into contexts. Entire stories are focussed in the one all-bundling key image, from which a narrative can be read backwards and forwards - a game with our ability to associate - a test of our perceptive faculty. Leupold is author, director, set designer, documentarist - seemingly affirming and conserving, but in reality critically reflecting and challenging us to think further..." Prof. Dr. Ulrich Eckhardt, 1973-2001 artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele: (from the laudatory speech at the opening of the exhibition THE TIME HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN at the Art and Media Centre, in Berlin-Adlershof 2003) Artist Statement by Matthias Leupold Staged photography is a tool to realize my artistic intentions. The technical medium photography allows to either fixate or transform past, present or already enunciated situations. Concerning that, my photography envelops many different historical aspects: the reflection of present happenings and the re-staging of historical references. Actors and models are placed in various landscapes or urban ex- and interiors, which I interpret to be "playgrounds" or stages for my photography. My inspiration is fed by the "outrageous occurence", the genius loci and by the observation of human interaction. Subject matters such as loneliness, vulnerability, injury and dissipation are taken on in tableaus or single photographs. Matthias Leupold received his (Master Pupil+Diploma: MFA) in Communication Design at Universty of Art Berlin, Germany. His work has been shown at the New Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum for Moder Art, Academie of Art, all in Berlin, Berlinische Galerie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Rosa Esman Gallery New York, M.I.T. Cambridge, PRC Boston University, Art-School, Portland/Main, Maison du Danemark, Lianzhou Photo Festival China, Paris, Center of Contemporary Art, Warzcawa, Center of Contemporary Art, Tallinn, Berlin, Photo+ Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle, NRW Forum Düsseldorf. He has a professorship at a Berlin university. Brilliant Museum Silver Gloss White, archivally proper — with an elegantly subtle punch, an acid-free, alpha-cellulose papers that emulate the classic, air-dried, glossy fibre-based traditional silver-halide papers used by the master black-and-white printers. 300 gsm with a thickness between 18 and 19 mils

Photography:Black & White on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:30

Size:30 W x 40 H x 0.1 D in

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